Nothing is more critical to the future of a profession than the quality of the education that its practitioners receive. In audiology, as in many other fields, the requirement that academic programs receive accreditation from a recognized accrediting body is an essential part of ensuring that future audiologists are properly prepared to enter their profession.
Currently, two organizations accredit educational programs in audiology. One is the Council on Academic Accreditation in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology (CAA); the other is the Accreditation Commission for Audiology Education (ACAE).
Because of the importance of this issue to audiology, I invited leaders of CAA and ACAE to explain in the Hearing Views section of Hearinghealthmatters.org why audiology programs, their faculty, and their students are best served by selecting their particular accreditation.
This week, we are publishing CAA’s Hearing View. Next week, ACAE will get its turn. The order in which the articles appear was randomly determined and both articles were complete and final earlier prior to publication. Hence, neither organization is able to respond to the other’s article.
As always, I invite readers to comment on these Hearing Views. However, let me suggest that you may wish to read both articles before doing so.
David H. Kirkwood
Editor, Hearing Views
Why CAA accreditation?
By Dan C. Halling and Patti Tice
Dan Halling
Patti Tice
Did you graduate from a CAA-accredited program? It’s very likely that many of you did. Having accredited graduate education programs since 1965, the Council on Academic Accreditation in Audiology and Speech- Language Pathology (CAA) has a well-established track record for administering an accreditation program of rigor and integrity.
What factors led to the development of an accreditation program more than 45 years ago? Why did we need review and validation by our peers to indicate that our graduate education programs reflected academic excellence and were doing their job of preparing students for professional practice? The short answer to these questions is…commitment to quality.
If you’re contemplating the value of our long-standing accreditation process—or wondering how accreditation has affected you as a practicing professional, faculty member, student, or consumer—then you’ll be interested to know that these questions have been addressed at the national level. Since 1964 and 1967, respectively, this academic accreditation program has enjoyed continuous national recognition by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (and its predecessors) and the U.S. Secretary of the Department of Education (ED).
Not only does this recognition provide an external validation of the quality of the CAA’s accreditation program, but recognition by the governmental entity assures that the accreditation standards and operations meet expectations for institutional and program participation in federal initiatives, such as financial aid. Specifically, ED recognition enables CAA-accredited programs to be eligible to apply for certain federal grants—critical in this time of budget cuts and challenges to financial aid programs.
WHY THE CURRENT MODEL OF ACCREDITATION?
Since its establishment in 1996, the CAA has operated under a set of Principles of Accreditation that have guided and directed the council in setting standards, policies, and procedures, and in its accreditation decision-making. These principles were created and the CAA came into being because of a collaborative effort with the academic community, through the (then-titled) Council of Graduate Programs in Communication Sciences and Disorders (CGPCSD).
A Joint Committee on Academic Accreditation Issues was formed with a charge to analyze issues related to accreditation of education programs in response to external and internal influences and to make recommendations for action. The committee prepared a final report with numerous recommendations for changes to the accreditation program, which were approved by both participating organizations and which became the new model for academic accreditation under the governance of a newly formed accrediting body, the CAA.
One of the key principles developed at that time stated that, although audiology and speech-language pathology are separate professions, they share a common interest in the scientific principles of the discipline of human communication. The principle further states that accreditation of audiology and speech-language pathology graduate programs should be carried out by a single body, but one that accommodates the different educational needs of the two professions.
DEVELOPING AND IMPLEMENTING STANDARDS
The CAA has taken a number of actions to address these different educational needs and to honor and respect the autonomy of the two professions. First and foremost, the CAA developed separate academic and clinical education standards for accreditation for the professions of audiology and speech-language pathology. Therefore, the real essence of the standards (Standard 3–Curriculum) is profession-specific and identifies the expectations of graduate education programs related to student learning outcomes.
All other standards still require profession-specific evidence of compliance from programs and are evaluated separately by CAA. Also, only council members in the relevant profession approve these different standards (i.e., only the audiologists vote on the audiology standards).
A number of years ago, the CAA moved beyond prescriptive or restrictive standards to outcomes-based standards that encourage program reflection and planning for quality improvement. They also allow for flexibility and creativity by the programs in determining how to achieve the identified outcomes. Thus, one of CAA’s tenets in its evaluation of programs is to conduct its review in the context of the individual program’s own mission and goals, and to respect the institution’s responsibility to set priorities and to control how the program is structured and operates.
In application of the standards, the CAA recognizes that some programs may require direct and more traditional guidelines, while other programs may wish to be more innovative and experimental. Thus, the CAA encourages programs to develop appropriate goals and curricula relevant to their strengths and experience, and then evaluates them within the context of those goals.
Further, consistent with another of its Principles of Accreditation, the CAA has removed from its standards any requirement related to ASHA certification or any other specific state or national credentials. Rather, the CAA requires that programs ensure that students have opportunities to acquire the knowledge and skills needed for entry into independent professional practice across the range of practice settings and to qualify for those state and national credentials that are relevant to the program’s purpose and goals.
For example, if a program’s goals include enabling graduates to be eligible for national certification, the program must demonstrate to the CAA that it is aware of the specific requirements for graduates to obtain such a credential and that it has mechanisms in place to track whether the students have had opportunities to acquire the requisite knowledge and skills for practice and to meet those credential requirements.
HOW WE OPERATE
The CAA is a semi-autonomous body of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and has full authority in setting accreditation standards, policies, and procedures, and in making all accreditation decisions. This was one of the key recommendations from the joint committee on accreditation in terms of the operational independence of the accreditor from a related professional organization–which recommendation was then approved by ASHA and CGPCSD as part of the new model of accreditation.
Currently, the CAA is composed of 18 members, including one public member. Seven of the remaining 17 members are audiologists, and 10 are speech-language pathologists. The CAA roster for 2011 is provided on the web site. In relation to the number of accredited programs in each profession (see statistics below) and the accompanying workload, there are proportionately more audiologists per program than speech-language pathologists on the CAA.
Because today’s U.S. accreditation systems of self-regulation are based on the concept of peers reviewing peers, the CAA also includes 12 academics and 5 practitioners on the council. This composition is consistent with one of the Principles of Accreditation, which states that, although professional practitioners and the public should be represented on the accrediting body, majority representation should come from the academic community.
The CAA will continue the review, begun in 2010, of its functional framework. This review will help to identify if there are areas where accreditation policies, procedures, enhancements, decisions, and outcomes would be even more efficient, effective, or profession-specific than they are at present.
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
Just as the CAA encourages self-scrutiny and planning for change and needed improvement by its accredited programs, it applies the same expectations to its own organization and functioning. Accordingly, the council adopted a formalized Accreditation Quality Management System (AQMS) in 2005 to implement and maintain an ongoing mechanism for assessment and improvement of accreditation operations and services to academic programs.
Part of the AQMS involves the regular fielding of customer satisfaction surveys to its constituents to gather important feedback to improve the accreditation program. One of the areas recently identified in a survey related to streamlining the reporting process for programs. One response to this issue was the transition to an online reporting system for CAA reports through the Higher Education Data System (HES). Programs are now seeing a reduction in redundancy of information being requested. Input from programs regarding the initial implementation of this process will be incorporated into version 2.0 of the HES, under development now, and programs will find it to be more user-friendly with enhanced functionality.
The development of this database system, again, was a collaborative effort with the academic community. Contributing to this database allows data from accredited programs to be included in the larger HES, which collects data on all graduate programs in communication sciences and disorders, including research PhD programs, which provides an important value to programs. Analyses of these higher education data are useful for many purposes, including advancement of the professions, reimbursement issues, advocacy efforts in legislation and regulation, and advocacy with your own higher education institutions, etc. Examples of data reports extracted from the HES are provided on ASHA’s web site.
Additional areas for improvement have been identified from the 2010 customer satisfaction survey results and are being included in the CAA’s new strategic plan for 2012-2014. Watch the CAA web site for more information soon.
A FEW STATISTICS
There are 259 institutions of higher education that sponsor CAA-accredited or candidate programs–72 audiology programs (including 5 consortia) and 249 speech-language pathology programs. Also, the CAA is pleased to report that it accredits 100% of the existing entry-level clinical doctoral programs in audiology. The complete list of CAA-accredited programs is provided on the CAA web site.
It is important to note that the vast majority of CAA-accredited audiology programs are housed in departments that also offer speech-language pathology programs. In this challenging economic environment, these programs are able to enjoy the benefits not only of shared faculty and other resources, but also of coordinated site visits and reduced accreditation fees provided by the current CAA fee structure.
WE’D LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU
Finally, please note that the CAA is ready to release for widespread peer review several proposed changes to the Standards for Accreditation that provide clarification in a number of areas and that provide greater flexibility for programs in how they design their curricula.
As we reflect on our history, we are grateful for the hundreds of programs and thousands of faculty, clinical supervisors, students, and volunteers that have contributed to the legacy of quality education in our professions. Accreditation must allow for innovation and must reflect the ideas and hopes of professionals like you. Share your insights with the CAA through the standards review process and help to continue accreditation’s standard of excellence in communication sciences and disorders.
We invite you to provide your comments on these draft changes via the on-line peer review process. The CAA will review every comment and will determine the need for any additional changes to the standards during its next two meetings in November 2011 and February 2012.
We invite you to learn more about the CAA by:
• browsing the CAA Web site via the links provided in this article;
• e-mailing us at [email protected] with any questions or comments;
• speaking with any of us at upcoming professional meetings, such as the ASHA convention in November or the annual conference of the Council of Academic Programs in Communication Sciences and Disorders (CAPCSD) in April, or through any other meetings or communication vehicles.
We are grateful for this opportunity to share some important information, and perhaps even to clarify some misconceptions, about the CAA accreditation program. The CAA has enjoyed the support of the academic community throughout its history and has maintained predictable and stable resources to operate effectively. We are eager to hear from you to consider any suggestions you may have for making the CAA accreditation program even better.
Dan Halling, PhD, has served on the CAA since 2008 and is currently Chair of the Council. A former Associate Professor and Director of Audiology at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA, he is now Director of Audiology for a new program under development at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, MI. Patti Tice is Director of Accreditation at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and is the staff ex officio for the CAA.
